WASHINGTON (Dispatches) -- A new study revealed that a small and unique antibody-like proteins known as VNARs which is derived from the immune systems of sharks can prevent the virus that causes COVID-19, its variants, and related coronaviruses from infecting human cells.
“The big issue is there are a number of coronaviruses that are poised for emergence in humans,” says Aaron LeBeau, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of pathology who helped lead the study. “What we’re doing is preparing an arsenal of shark VNAR therapeutics that could be used down the road for future SARS outbreaks. It’s a kind of insurance against the future.”
LeBeau and his lab in the School of Medicine and Public Health collaborated with researchers at the University of Minnesota and Elasmogen, a biomedical company in Scotland that is developing therapeutic VNARs.
“These small antibody-like proteins can get into nooks and crannies that human antibodies cannot access,” says LeBeau. “They can form these very unique geometries. This allows them to recognize structures in proteins that our human antibodies cannot.”